Louisville attorney and GOP official Jack Richardson filed a petition with the clerk of the Kentucky House on Tuesday to impeach Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Pamela Goodwine, alleging that she violated judicial rules by failing to recuse herself from an education-related case where she had a conflict of interest.
Citizens may submit impeachment petitions to the state House, but the representatives of the chamber cannot take them up until they convene the 2026 legislative session, which begins in January.
Richardson’s seven-page petition centers around Goodwine’s participation in a controversial education case this year, as well as contributions to a political action committee that purchased ads to help elect her.
A 4-3 majority of the Supreme Court voted in April to rehear a case they had ruled on in December. The original December ruling — a 4-3 decision upholding a 2022 law that limited the power of Jefferson County Public Schools’ elected board — occurred a month after Goodwine was first elected to the office, and before Goodwine was sworn into office.
Goodwine was the swing vote in the new majority to request a rehearing of the case in April, sought for by the Jefferson County Board of Education.
In his impeachment petition, Richardson alleges that Goodwine was bound by the law and judicial conduct rules to recuse herself from the case, citing media reports that an independent political action committee heavily funded by the teachers’ union in Louisville spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads to help elect her.
Read the rest at Louisville Public Media.
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